Friday, 28 June 2013

As I talked about last time I had my players set their next level up goal and they chose:

Reaching and Securing The Ruins of the Golden Citadel

That
seemed a little bit too easy to be worth a level all on it’s own so I
have spent this week making it more challenging. I have the details of
the map between Horizon and the ruins of the Golden Citadel and I have
started to populate the Golden Citadel with Warbands who are struggling
for control of the Ruins.

The
lingering aura of the Great Gold Wyrm and the effects of the ruins of
the Golden Dome still protects the ruins from full blooded Demons, so in
their place the Demon Lords struggling to escape the Abyss empower
Champions and send them into the Ruins. Such Champions are often infused
with Demonic powers.

Before
the Abyss opened The Citadel was protected by a Golden Dome enchanted
to ward away supernatural evil. The rubble from this dome still litters
the ruins of the city and many of the warbands search for it either to
empower or weaken the wards around the abyss.

My players will earn incremental advances for the following mini goals:

Getting to the Citadel

Defeating a Warband

Getting a Warband on your side

Defeating or Recruiting half the Warband

Getting enough of the dome metal to do something cool with the Wards.

The Warbands that are struggling for control of the Ruins are:

The Author of Wrong Birthed - Mind Flayer Champion of a Demon lord

The Altar's Most High Overlord - Medusa Champion of a Demon Lord

The Dragon of Fear - Halfling Wizard Champion of Demon lord

The Preservers of the Perfect Doom - Sea Hag Champion of a Demon Lord

Demon Hunters working for the Priestess (This guy should blatantly be a “good guy” but be slightly distasteful or repulsive to work with.)

Paladins loyal to the Great Gold Wyrm

A Necromancer -

Lizardmen, Draconians etc led by a Dragon working for the Three

Goblinoids - because I like Goblins

Ratmen with a Prince of Shadows theme (Skaven Ninjas)

Gnolls Reformed and Branded by the Crusader (Think a hairy Solomon Kane)

Dwarf Treasure Hunters

Dark Elves - Hunters playing the ruins for sport

I have used this Villain Generator (and the Automated version is here) for the first 4 and am in the process of adding detail to the others. My plan is to have for each of them:

Leader: Name and Cool Schtick

Agenda: Why they are in the ruins

Secret: because that makes them more interesting

Henchmen and followers: troops and specials

Base and other resources in the city: I’m going to use Vornheim and Mordheim to make these.

I
want them to set a fairly big goal and they can level to 5th when they
achieve it and gain incremental advances when they reach a significant
milestone in that goal or if they significantly advance a personal plot
line.

Some of the ideas I have had about what that goal could be are:

Defeat the Demonic Warband that recently escaped from the Abyss (something that may or may not have been the players fault)

This
could involve travelling to the Red Wastes, finding the warband,
defeating the warband, helping shore up the wards over the abyss.

Unravel the mysteries surrounding Hale and Lynch the renegade Tower instigators were up to

This
could involve interrogating the pair, breaking the code on their notes,
stopping the rebellious cells they have set up and similar intrigue.

Un-curse the silver coins they found that they think used to be people cursed by the diabolist

They
found just over 900 silver coins with the symbol of the Diabolist on
one side and a persons face on the other, they suspect that each
different face represents a person cursed into coin form by the
Diabolist. This could involve finding the missing coins, finding out how
the diabolist did it, breaking the curse.

So I got myself a copy of Wilderlands of High Fantasy box set and the 13th Age map. Then, thanks to Becky from Eclectic Games and Simon from Pelgrane Press, added
Hexes to it. Then I discovered that at the Scale I had chosen the 3216 ish Hexes in The Wilderlands of High Fantasy only covered about 1/3rd of
the map.

At that point I went looking for more Hexes to pillage. Finding The Krall
and observing that it looks similar to the top right corner of the 13th
Age Map I stuck that one straight in and have decided to carry on
filling the map in 20 Hex by 20 Hex blocks.

The
next 20 by 20 hexes from the 13th age map cover the Hell Marsh (the
most common place to find the Diabolist), Lake Hope and The Walking
Trees. The Map also has 10 Hell Pits on it. So my aim is to tie the themes of the Hexes to those things and the politics of the Hell Pits.

This is what the 13th Age main book has to say about Hell Marsh:

Hell Marsh

This
marshland west of Anvil is the Diabolist’s territory. Some of the
swampland between the hellholes is normal enough, but the hellholes are
so plentiful that much of the swamp writhes

with
demonic energies. The deeper you go, the more dangerous it gets. The
more often you visit, the weirder it gets, but that may just be you
changing instead of the terrain.

My first Hex for this map is one of the Hell pits:

03,31
Hell Pit full of Dretches. They have a Throne that weakens more
powerful Demons who get too close to it and so free of the tyranny of
the greater Demons have created a tyranny all of their own.

Please pick a Hex and add a description in the comments.

Here
is the Google Spreadsheet I am going to be using to track all the hexes
people have helped with. Feel free to add details in there as well.

The session was good and the players cleared a bunch of rooms before retreating back to the nearby Halfling town of Barrow.

That
session and planning for the game on Friday where the players are
planning to return to the Dungeon got me thinking about living Dungeons.

One
of the suggestions in the 13th age rulebook is to tell the players the 6
most infamous or interesting Dungeons in your version of 13th age, mine
are:

The Tomb of the Wizard King based loosely on Gallowspire from the Dungeons of Golarion book for Pathfinder.

A flying realm that rains goblins on foes (inspired by a comment I read or heard from Rob Heniso, I think it was here) It looks like castle Greyskull possibly on its side.

The Secret Vault of the Draco Emporium Trading empire. Based on the background and one unique thing of one of my players.

The
Horde of the Great Gold Wyrm. hidden somewhere beneath the Red Wastes
and unlockable only by clues scattered amongst his followers and in the
ruins of The Golden Citadel. (I’m using Carcosa for the Red Wastes so
that whole section should be interesting)

Horizon
and Drakkenhall Sewers The homes of subterranean monsters joined by
Strange magics to the Sewers beneath the largest concentration of
Wizards in the Empire. Each tunnel that you traverse might be under
either of the cities.

Omens
Home a Famous living Dungeon that has tried to rise many times each
part of it connects in some way to Omen. Either having briefly become a
flying realm and crash landed or sent tunnels heading towards shore to
grow dungeon levels on the edge of beaches.

Thursday, 6 June 2013

Today I weigh 14 stone 4lbs. So far I have lost 4 lbs this week. I intend to skip my binge day this weekend and have a Ninjitsu Seminar on Saturday morning.

Here
are 13 NPC’s from my 13th Age game. All inspired by my Characters
Backgrounds, One Unique Things or Icon relationships. They are already
known to one or two of the Characters, though not all of them have
turned up in game.

Each
of them should also have a Secret and a Motivation but I haven't filled
in all of them either because the players don’t already know them or I
haven't decided on them yet.. Feel free to pitch in some suggestions for
them in the comments.

Hacari Circlesailer
- Pirate Captain with Demonic summoning circle from the ship The
Circle. The Party discovered his summoning circle on a trip to New Port
and Gribnez used it to Summon a Demon named Pimomasiel. (fun Fact I
decided what sort of Demon Pimomasiel was by showing the player who
knows least about Dnd models from my Demon section of the Figure box and
getting her to pick one she liked. It made the players that knew what
they each were twitch a lot.)

Motivation:

Secret: He is a Servant of the Diabolist and his Ship is powered by Demons not by the wind.

George - The Dretch. A lesser demon granted to Hacari Circlesailer Captain of the ship The Circle.

Deneth Serassalion
- Elf - Magical item forgery creator in Newport. The Party broke into
his warehouse and when he turned up (alerted by his alarm Spell) They
convinced him he was being punked. He has connections in both The Tower
and with people that need fake magic items (Often the Prince of
Shadows).

Motivation: as it related to the PC’s inflict minor revenge upon them for fooling him.

Secret: He makes Fake magic items for a living.

Sir Altariel A High Elven Paladin,

Scorning
the Courtly intrigue and deceit of the The Elven Court, Altariel is a
soul without Guilt. She has a very straight forward approach to all
problems.

She
will typically turn up having heard about a character getting a reward
or (a 6) from the great Gold Dragon and will either want to pledge her
aid to that Character or to get their aid with something she cannot
defeat on her own.

She
may also turn up having been conned of all her belongings by a follower
of the prince of Shadows and want the players help either getting them
back or getting re kitted.

Hurggleeee Sauhaguin Pirate

Located in the Fangs or the Midland Sea

Unable
to return to the Midland Sea by order of the empire he has become a dry
skinned scourge of shipping. With the help of Lorret a wizard out of
favor with the archmage he has twisted the magic of the edict to
literally prevent him from returning to the sea, He is under a constant
water walking effect. He can extend his water walking to an area,
becalming ships etc.

His
Scaly skin is dry and cracked, stats as a Shaguin with some class
abilities. Immune to any water effect. His Crits also destroy potions.

Secret: Motivation: Kill landlubbers, end the edict preventing Monsters from being in the Midland Sea.

Lorret a Dwarf Wizard out of favor with the Archmage.

Works out of shadowport doing minor rituals and cantrips for less reputable people.

Secret: Massive Gambling Debts that have been bought out by the Prince of Shadows.

Why
is he out of favor: He was responsible for the failure of a massive
ritual that was the culmination of at least a years work. Motivation:
Get out of all this trouble and get away with it all.

Monday, 3 June 2013

May
was great for gaming and having fun. Less good for fitness and
Blogging. This month I am back on track for exercising and dieting
again. I am currently back up to 14st 8lbs but I expect that to fall off
pretty quickly. I intend to be 14st or lighter by the end of June.

I
had a pretty full weekend of Gaming. On Friday we played a 10th level
Pathfinder one shot, That I can’t talk too much about as Gav wants to run it again for another group. (Which I will try and get him to write a guest post about).

On
Saturday we played Mark’s Golden Age of Pirates D20 Game, which was
excellent. We explored a Dungeon on an Island revealed by the tide but
had a hard real time limit of the returning tide that threatened to
drown us. It added an excellent level of tension to the adventure.

Then on Sunday we played the final part of Dan’s Savage Worlds of Slain adventure (Beyond the Wailing Marsh from Issue 16 of Signs and Portents Magazine). In which we cured two tribes of a ravaging disease and defeated the forces of the Drune Lords in a mass battle.

On
saturday evening because we had so many different people staying or
visiting for Gaming we had a BBQ which led to some extremely interesting
conversations about peoples experiences with Gaming. Gav asked the
first question, which was very similar to the one Keith asked us as an Icebreaker when he was doing Have Dice Will Travel.

He asked each of us “What is your favorite system?” and got some extreamly varied responses;

Mine is Feng Shui,
but others that were mentioned were 13th Age, Apocalypse World, Dnd
3.X, Mage: The Ascencion, FATE (specifically Spirit of the Century), and
Call of Cthulhu.

This
led to a variety of other questions from What was your favorite
Campaign, Favorite Character, Favorite Adventure? to what is an example
of the worst behaviour you have experienced at a Game? If you don’t GM,
Why not? (Leading to me lending someone The Armitage Files, which I hope
they will run.) What is your Favorite XP system?

What would you ask as a gaming Icebreaker? What is your answer to any of the Questions above?